Host burnout - just venting

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Don’t. One of the disadvantages of being on site is that sometimes you have a little bit more contact with guests than you’d prefer. The vast majority (in our case) have been fine and on the odd occasion during the warmer months, at their invitation, we’ve shared a glass of wine (or sherry!) with guests on one of the patios.

Then again, there are those like you described. When the conversation starts with “I’ve got some feedback and I know you’ll take it the right way…” you know it’s not going to be a 5min chat.

One such chat ended up with a list of such minor inconveniences (like no spare kitchen roll) that if we hadn’t already known there was no chance of them rebooking they’d have been blocked. The final complaint (and they were complaints not feedback) was that we should really have it in the listing that there is a school nearby as “she could hear children playing during the day”. We are a city centre listing! She still left us a five star review but mentioned the kids - the private feedback was all her previous moans, plus the kids again.

After the turn of the year we’re likely to be fairly quiet for about six weeks, then it all starts again with the Flamenco festival in February. Like you, maintenance and “us” time is forecast.

JF

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I agree!!! My most recent guests in NC left me feeling deflated.

It started 15 minutes after check in when she declared it was not clean because she found a cat toy UNDER the TV stand and sent me a picture of a pill found on the floor under bed (I didn’t see it when I made bed or did the final cleaning walk through inspection).

There were recurring problems with her family not obeying parking rules. There was ample parking close by.

After checkout I found where someone had taken apart the dining table & chairs & loosely reassembled and the dining light fixture had been taken down and loosely reinstalled.

This rant is just going on way longer than I want to type and this is only about 1/4 of the concerns. I’m just glad it is over.

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The hotels that I have stayed in don’t have a feedback system like this. But you will see some incredibly stupid ones on Trip Advisor.

I am accommodating a homeless friend right now and it’s death by a thousand pinpricks!

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Yes, sometimes venting is the only thing we can do…I hate when guests move things around. Sigh.

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Thanks! One of her suggestions was that I should “do something” about our neighbor’s messy yard. You can see it from one of the upstairs bedroom. WTH? Yeah, it’s messy, but he is the best neighbor ever…and she mentioned that the dishwasher is very loud. She’s right, it is. Ha. It does a great job, however.

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Sounds like that guest thinks as a host you should be queen of the neighborhood! Can you imagine what it would be like to be her neighbor? Wonder if she tells them to clean up their yards?

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To me this kind of venting is healthy. But I find myself going to nice places and nitpicking what a petty guest might say! Somebody shoot me…:wink:

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That’s it! I’m the Queen of the Neighborhood! Perfect. I will add it to my listing and offer High Tea as an Airbnb Experience.

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…along with “bring me a cat!” and “off with his head!”

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I’m sorry this happened and I can relate to those few and far between exhausting guests. It always baffles me that these type of guests always comes with a husband who is either equally obnoxious or completely unable to do even basic adjustments to help his wife out. For example: we had a woman complain that she didn’t care for the auto setting we have set on the lights in the bathroom. She found it “annoying.” There is a simple switch located ON THE LIGHT to turn the setting off. It is not even worth opening the phone to type a complaint. Some people cannot be helped.

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This sounds like an attempt to sabotage your listing. I’m trying to think of the logical reasons someone does this.

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Mr Rigsby would have barged in at 1am to fix the curtain rail. “Don’t mind me ladies but I think this rod is a little tight and needs some loosening”. Or maybe that is Carry on Up the AirBnB? Different times.

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To be fair whenever I look at real estate online I might live in I check there isn’t a school within 500m.

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That was my thought too. I had an uncomfortable encounter with her brother in-law and wondered if he was involved. I also wondered if one of her family members thought the dining table & light would look good in their home and something stopped them. (Her family was local. She was visiting from Germany).

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That is a fair point, however to give a bit of context - while we are in a fairly quiet residential street, our property is in the centre of a bustling Spanish city, a few minutes walk from the main commercial area. I think she would have found fault no matter where we were located.

JF

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I had never heard of Mr Rigsby (Rising Damp) we found him on You Tube… OMG too funny!

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I’ve seen this statement in other places on this forum. I’ve been an AirBnB host for 17 months and have never figured out how to do this, though I’ve had a couple guests that I’d really like to block. How do you block someone?

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Here’s the most recent post on the topic.

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I’ve upped my prices and blocked off more dates so I can “exist” outside of hosting. It grates at my soul when guests make comments that we are “outside of town” when in reality we are in the CENTER of town but just outside of the historic downtown. As if they know more about where I live in the 2-days they’ve spent there than I do. Or they decide to cancel their reservation because it is raining…in the rainiest city in the US. It is as if people don’t read the listings or do any research before arriving. Entitlement is a theme I’ve seen across cultures and ages which is ruining this experience for many of us. It doesn’t serve the traveler nor does it serve the host.

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I had a weird one last night an d I’ll get back to her if she leaves her valued feedback
The guy before her though stayed 5 days, in that time I took him for a spin on my Harley and dropped him off to pick so he could collect his vehicle 25km away…his feedback was glowing apart from his 4/5 appraisal of …drum roll (location) his comment “shopping is a bit inconvenient”
I had to reply to let other viewers know that
Distance to nearest:
Supermarket: 1.8km
Petrol Station: 1.7km
Restaurant: 1.8Km
Pub: 1.9km
Post office: 2.1 Km
Chemist: 2Km
Fishing/Diving/Outdoor: 1.7 Km
By car (which he had) ,these destinations are a maximum of 3 minutes away
Regarding the Princess that stayed last night, I truly hope she doesn’t bother me with feedback because I know I will be posting here in the venting section if she does!

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